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Full Description
Hesiod's concept of a Golden Age, together with analogous myths - Babylonian, Egyptian, Hebrew, etc. - speak to the psychic appeal, perhaps even deep-rooted need, for humans to conceive alternate worlds free from the anguish, toil, and dangers of the one they inhabit. Classical poets and philosophers explored the myth; the Middle Ages imagined it as the land of Cockaigne; Early Modern dramatists incorporated it; Romantic poets and nineteenth-century writers imagined it in various guises. This volume explores the configuration presented by Hesiod and the history of its reception and transformation in European literature and culture. The chapters study how texts written in specific historical moments of European history reshape elements of the myth to explore contemporary issues of concern. The book addresses these issues of cultural hybridization, and, from a transhistorical perspective, provides new insights into the dynamics of epochal shifts. It also looks at similar configurations in non-Western civilizations (China), which complements the spectrum of contributions that covers periods from classical antiquity to the Age of Goethe.
Contents
List of Contributors
Preface
Claudia Olk and Stephen G. Nichols,
Introduction
Oliver Primavesi
Chapter 1: Hesiod and Empedocles on the Decline of Humankind
Stephen G. Nichols
Chapter 2: Eros and Eris in Hesiod's Myth of the Golden Age
Jack I. Abecassis
Chapter 3: In defense of the Evil Brother, an Interpretation of Hesiod's Works and Days
Daniel Heller-Roazen
Chapter 4: The Oldest Reading: Prometheus and the Arts of Divination
Brian J. Reilly
Chapter 5: "Immeasurably Preferred to Gold": The Saintly Age of Medieval Christian Salvation
Gaia Gubbini
Chapter 6: After the End: The Troubadours, the Golden Age, and a Fading Civilization
Claudia Olk
Chapter 7: 'T'excel the Golden Age': Golden Worlds in the English Renaissance
Joachim Küpper
Chapter 8: Patriarchal Fantasies and Proto-Feminist Libertarianism: Don Quijote's Praise of the Golden Age and Marcela's Plea for Freedom
Andreas Höfele
Chapter 9: The Golden Age Restored, London 1616: Court Entertainment and Stuart Politics
David E. Wellbery
Chapter 10: The Golden Age in the Age of Goethe
Michael Lackner
Chapter 11: One Golden Age? Or many? Chinese Conceptions of the Ideal Society
Index
